Don't like the numbers? Then just make them up.

Now this, from National Review, is just sad:

[T]he Obama presidency has been a trainwreck of Carter-esque magnitude. Almost every historical predictor shows that Romney should have a sizeable lead.

So, give him one. That's National Review's solution. It isn't that Obama's presidency has been anything but a "trainwreck," or that Romney is the most gobsmackingly boo-booing nominee in American political history. No, it's that the polls are all wrong. They've been counting way, way too many Democrats, the little devils.

Therefore,

Republicans should be more optimistic than the timid souls that populate our TV screens seem to be.

Indeed, some on the right are simply inventing more agreeable polling statistics.

I said this is "sad," but I should have said it's exemplary: perfectly exemplary modern-day conservatism. Don't like the idea of climate change? Deny it. Don't care to ponder the empirical catastrophe of supply-side economics? Ignore it. Find it difficult to justify the idiotic notion of more tax cuts as revenue boosters? Well, then, just scream that you're right and everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong and leave it at that--right after noting that Mitt Romney is, of course, ahead.

Comments

[DerFarm]

It's not that I disagree with anything you said, but I'm quite worried about the results.

It would appear that Obama is in line with drubbing Romney at a pace just less than he did with McCain. I don't happen to think he'll take IN or NC, but hell, who knows. The popular vote, however, could easily be a larger margin than in 2008.

The RW Wurlitzer won't believe it. After all, all these websites and pundits that claimed the polls were wrong!!! Somebody's CHEATING!

I'll not be surprised at anything the wingnuts in the Militias, Posse or Aryan Nations will do in December. Anything.

[Turgidson]

Epistemic closure is a bitch, ain't it? These right-wing propaganda outlets have been hollering about Obama's failed presidency since before he was sworn in.

At first, it was probably a cynical ploy among NRO writers and their allies in similar rags to poison the well and try to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of Obama=fail for their own ends. But long ago they started to really, truly, genuinely believe every word of it. They just can't comprehend the notion that Obama is not, in fact, a total failure. That he steadied an imploding economy inherited from their last Dear Leader. That he got Osama "I don't think much about him" Bin Laden. That there are scores of working class whites, who are supposed to hate Obama's guts, that are quite grateful that he wouldn't let the auto industry die. And on and on.

They just can't accept it because it's not the reality they choose to inhabit. But they don't realize their preferred reality is in fact total delusion. So the polls have to be wrong. The worst.president.ever. simply can't be winning.

Hey, to some extent I know the feeling. I was appalled that C+ Augustus didn't get his incompetent ass sent back to Crawford in disgrace in 2004. The difference is, I was right about Bush being a disaster and about a year later most of the country woke up and started to notice. Too late, but they did. When Obama wins a 2nd term and the economy starts gaining steam (fingers crossed Europe doesn't ruin it for us by imploding), the wingnuts just won't know what to think when the worst.president.ever enjoys 55% and up approval ratings.

[shsavage]

By creating this myth, the NR simply feeds the narrative that the Democrats are a minority in America, and that ANY Democratic victory MUST be the result of voter fraud. Even though there's no evidence for voter fraud, which just PROVES how sneaky the handful of Democrats really are.

[shsavage]

Somehow, this reminds me of the kind of absolutism manifest by Howell Cobb, who was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and Speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as a Secretary of Treasury under President James Buchanan (1857–1860) and the 40th Governor of Georgia (1851–1853). He is, however, probably best known as one of the founders of the Confederate States of America, having served as the President of the Provisional Confederate Congress, when delegates of the secessionist states created the Confederacy. Also, he's the guy that Cobb Country, Georgia is named for, and that's the center of Newt Gingrich's former congressional district (Coincidence? I don't think so, but I digress).

Back to the point:
In the closing days of the Civil War, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E. Lee's eleventh hour proposal of enlisting slaves into the Confederate army. Fearing this move would completely discredit the fundamental justification of slavery that blacks were inferior people, he said, "You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."

So Turgidson's characterization that "They just can't accept it because it's not the reality they choose to inhabit. But they don't realize their preferred reality is in fact total delusion. So the polls have to be wrong. The worst.president.ever. simply can't be winning." is just a variation on Cobb's original cri de coeur: If this guy could be a good President, then our entire view of society is wrong.

[Marcia Smith]

from the NR:

"Unemployment is high, consumer confidence is low, two-thirds of voters think the country is on the wrong track, more believe we’re worse off now than we were four years ago, household income has plummeted, gas prices are hovering near record highs, and most voters perceive America to be in decline."

Judging from the rhetoric we've been hearing from the Right since the day after Election Day in 2008, I'd guess the NR is reporting this as resoundingly good news. Every time the talk radio screamers have reported bad financial news they've managed to retain a certain note of glee in their delivery.

The GOP isn't crying any big tears over the above, or anything worse than that. This is exactly what they wanted, exactly what they've been working for since Obama was elected. Five weeks from now they'll either be seeing all that blow up in their faces or a majority of US voters -- plus those who thought it so very clever to not vote at all -- will be getting exactly what they deserve. Unfortunately there will be considerable "collateral damage" in that scenario.